GETTING ORGANIZED: You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks…or CAN You?

So many people seem unhappy in their professional lives. Very few connect that dissatisfaction to being disorganized, which can make a good job seem unbearable. The good news is that it's easy to correct! Some of the most organized people I know were not "born organized." That means there is hope! You CAN teach an old dog new tricks…but only if the dog is motivated to learn. (Read my article titled "Getting Motivated to Get Organized" at http://www.orgcoach.net/newsletter/april2002.html.)

Many of my clients are effective decision-makers on a higher level, but they have difficulty managing the hundreds of micro-decisions they must make daily, often in the form of paper -- memos and letters to read, phone messages to return, mail to sort, reports and proposals to review, and to-do lists a mile long.

Although some people come by organization more naturally than others, I have worked with enough organizationally challenged individuals to realize that organization is a learned skill - a skill that includes a set of methods and tools to help you arrange your time, physical environment, communications, and thoughts to meet your goals. As many as half of the people whose work involves management of people, information and time are not good at organizing their work at the most basic level. Since organization is the cornerstone upon which everything else is built, it's clear that many individuals and companies face significant productivity challenges.

If you question how fundamentally important organization is in the work environment, consider the cost of disorganization in these scenarios:

· Two attorneys (I'll call them Jim and Tom) were under consideration for partnership in their law firm. Tom was capable and dependable. Jim was brilliant. Some people thought that Jim was a shoe-in for becoming partner. But this brilliant attorney was known for his disorganization. One day a senior partner received a phone call from an irate client. Although the client felt that Jim was very skilled at what he did, she reported that he had not returned her phone calls. After several failed attempts to communicate with him, her company had decided to terminate their relationship with the firm. Jim's disorganization cost his firm a major client, and it cost him the promotion he'd hoped for. Ultimately, partnership was offered to Tom, who was not as skilled as Jim but was more organized and responsive to clients' needs.

NOTE: A large number of malpractice suits against lawyers result from failure to file papers by required due dates.

· The owner of a small auto repair company (I'll call him Gus) had a great reputation for doing quality work. He prided himself on quick turn-around time so his customers would not be without their cars any longer than necessary. There was only one problem. Gus hated doing paperwork…including depositing customer checks and paying his bills. Some of the checks in his office were for large sums of money and were more than a year old. Many of the vendors who supplied car parts to Gus' repair shop got tired of waiting to be paid. Eventually his largest vendor quit supplying the parts, and his work came to a standstill. Clients became angry when Gus could no longer have their cars ready by the promised time, and his reputation in the community became tarnished. It wasn't long before he was faced with the possibility of closing his doors due to lack of business.

· Poor organization and communication in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation created some missteps in failing to act on key information available prior to the September 11 attacks last year. In one memo, an FBI agent in Phoenix recommended that his superiors look for al Qaeda members training at U.S. flight schools. Elsewhere in the FBI was information about the August arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, who sought flight lessons in Minnesota and has since been charged with conspiring in the September 11 attacks. Had this information been organized in such a way that it could have been more freely shared within the FBI, as well as with the CIA, the correlation between this and other known information could have helped officials foresee and prevent the attacks. After the attacks last year, FBI Director Robert Mueller briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee on a plan to restructure the bureau so that such lack of communication would not occur again.

The Faces of Disorganization

The average U.S. executive wastes six weeks per year retrieving misplaced information on desks or in files. At a salary of $75,000 per year, this translates to 12.3% of total earnings, or $9225…and that's just for one person!

In the examples shared above, disorganization symbolizes a costly drain of resources that has several faces - the corporate face, the personal (employee) face, and the public (consumer) face.

The corporate face of managerial disorganization is measured in lost productivity dollars. Take the example of the employee above who makes $75,000 per year wastes one hour a day looking for lost and misplaced information (this is a conservative estimate). Now multiply that loss in productivity by 10, 50 or 100 managers who are organizationally challenged. The numbers become alarming when multiplying the loss.

In addition, it's difficult to measure the loss in terms of unfinished projects, sales calls never made, or innovative ideas that were never pursued as a result of disorganization. Each manager's personal inefficiency becomes an operating inefficiency for the company. Restoring individual performance is essential to getting the highest productivity return from the investment in management.

The personal face of managerial disorganization is one you're probably familiar with - either because you have struggled with it yourself or because you have worked with a disorganized colleague and have experienced the results of their disorder. Basic skills are consistently compromised by inability to organize one's environment, schedule, and thoughts. The symptoms: piles of paper, missed deadlines, constant interruptions, forgetting to follow up or follow through, inability to find needed information, running late, and the list goes on. Personal organization is a key trait of many successful people.

The public face of managerial disorganization is one we are all familiar with. When productivity goes down in any place of work, the cost of doing business goes up. We all end up paying for it - in the costs of delivered goods and services, or…in the case of government waste…with our tax dollars. Sometimes the cost goes far beyond dollars and cents (September 11, for example).

The Costs of Disorganization

Take this quick survey to identify your productivity strengths and challenges. Place a Y (YES) or N (NO) next to each question.

PRODUCTIVITY SURVEY

PAPER / INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Do you have difficulty retrieving information from your desktop, computer, or filing system within one minute?

Do others have difficulty retrieving information from your desktop, computer, or filing system within 5 minutes when requested to do so?

Do you struggle with managing paperwork -- incoming mail, filing, reviewing or submitting reports, etc.?

Are there papers on your desktop -- other than reference materials -- that you have not looked at in a week or more?

Do you have difficulty managing your e-mail -- finding messages you've kept, responding to messages, etc.?

TIME MANAGEMENT Do you wish you had a better system for planning, prioritizing, and achieving your goals? At the beginning of each work day, are you uncertain about what your primary tasks are for the day?

Do you often find at the end of the day that you have not completed all of the tasks you planned to accomplish?

During the last three months, are there any memos, letters, emails, or messages that you failed to respond to because they got buried or forgotten about?

Do you frequently receive emails, letters, or phone calls that start with, "I have not heard back from you about…"?

During the last three months, have you forgotten any scheduled meetings or appointments, or any special dates/anniversaries that you wanted to acknowledge?

Do you take a loaded briefcase back and forth from work and home more than once a week?

Do you experience frequent interruptions (phone calls, pages, visitors, etc.) that affect your ability to complete tasks requiring concentration?

Do you spend a good portion of your time in crisis mode -- dealing with urgent tasks, putting out fires?

Do you have a huge backlog of reading to do -- professional or trade journals and publications you need to read?

MANAGING OTHERS Do you often catch people on the run in order to communicate priorities and share important information?

Is your staff uncertain about their assignments, including scope of task, range of authority, deadline, and how the task fits into the overall purpose?

Once you've delegated a task, do you often forget to monitor progress and ensure that the tasks are completed on time?

Do you often end up doing tasks that were delegated to your staff?

Add up the number of YES responses above. If you scored: 0-5: Congratulations! Let's raise the bar a bit, and move it all the way to extraordinary! 6-8: You're on the right track, and there's some room for improvement. 9-12: Disaster ahead if changes not made soon… 13-19: Get help immediately! Now I know what you're probably thinking…I don't have time to get organized! Am I right?

Do you put "getting organized" on the back burner because of more pressing things which need your attention? Until you consistently pay attention to non-urgent but important tasks -- tasks such as getting organized, weekly planning, self-care, and other preventive kinds of activities -- the urgent tasks will continue to multiply, often to a critical state.

If you are organizationally challenged, here's the fallacy in thinking that you don't have time to get organized. The more you put it off, the more time and money your current habits will cost you and your company. Ask yourself these questions:

-- If I don't spend time addressing this now, how will it affect my life and my work? -- What will the consequences be of not getting organized? -- In order to say yes to getting organized, what will I have to say no to? Looking at the big picture, which will make me most productive and effective in the long run? -- Which of these tangible and intangible costs of disorganization below fit my circumstances?: TANGIBLE COSTS OF DISORGANIZATION: -- Late payment fees because you didn't make payments by the due date -- Overtime pay for support staff staying late to do a "rush" job you delegated last-minute -- Cost of replacing and retraining burned out employees who quit -- Cost to reproduce or repurchase something that you already have but cannot find -- Fees to overnight express something that could have been sent regular mail -- Forgetting to invoice a client and not getting paid for the work -- Interest on uncollected fees due to invoices not being mailed out in a timely manner -- Interest not accrued on cash and checks that sit around for a long time before being deposited -- Other: ________________

INTANGIBLE COSTS OF DISORGANIZATION -- Inability to expand your business or workload - you can barely handle what you already have! -- Missed opportunities, lack of competitive edge, losing customers to competitors who are more organized -- Stress and burnout that lead to illness, missed work and reduced productivity -- Other: ________________

Getting organized is like going on a diet. There's no deadline by which you must start, but the longer you put it off, the more detrimental the consequences will be, and the harder it becomes to reverse the trend.

Time to Take Action!

As you wind down the year, how about scheduling time in your calendar to address your organizational challenges? Then you can ring in the New Year with a new set of skills, methods, and tools to help you arrange your time, environment, and thoughts to meet your goals with less effort and stress. Here are three tools to help:

1. Sign up for one of my free teleclasses at http://www.orgcoach.net/teleclasses.html in December to learn some powerful new organizing skills. You'll learn a simple 3-step process to help you eliminate paper pile-up forever.

2. The survey above will help you identify where you'll need to focus to begin addressing your productivity challenges. If you need assistance assessing your needs, creating an action plan, or learning new skills, methods, and tools to increase your productivity.

3. Check out The Paper Tiger - a remarkable tool that guarantees you'll find anything in 5 seconds or less - guaranteed. Visit http://www.orgcoach.net/PaperTiger.html for more information.

Kathy Paauw helps busy executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs de-clutter their schedules, spaces and minds so they can focus on what's most important. She is an organizing & productivity consultant, certified business & personal coach, and speaker. Contact her at kathy@orgcoach.net or visit her website at www.orgcoach.net and learn how you can find anything you file or store in 5 seconds…guaranteed!

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